Bruno is a drug rep. His company, the ‘Zafer’, is going
through a difficult time. So as not to lose his job, Bruno is
willing to bribe doctors, deceive colleagues, betray the trust
of the people closest to him. He’s the last link in the chain in
the illegal yet widespread practice called “detailing”, which
pharmaceutical companies resort to as a way to manipulate
doctors by convincing them to prescribe their own products
and not the competitors’. And while some doctors refuse to go
along, many others have no such scruples. Bruno may seem to
be a monster, yet he is nothing other than the product of the
society around him: he embodies its contradictions, anxiety,
corruption and impunity.

Director’s statementBruno operates above the moral
threshold, immersed in a system of induced needs and a
disinterest in society. And he’s not alone: doctors and chemists
connive with him, and so do pharmaceutical companies in the
ruthless pursuit of profit. Below this threshold are the patients,
Bruno’s friends and his wife: normalcy. Everyone’s looking
out for themselves these days: their jobs, a lifestyle that will
pass muster in society. And more and more often, those who
have lost their privileges, and their jobs, above all, will do
something drastic.
I chose the pharmaceutical setting for the products it deals in:
medicines, the last thing that should be reduced to a merely
commercial product. And for this setting I chose a drug rep
as my main character because he’s a familiar figure, not too
far removed from our daily lives: a well-dressed man with a
sample case, whom we see in the doctor’s waiting room. He’s
“just” a pawn, but in his limited sphere he behaves exactly the
way the managerial class behaves in the larger picture.